


keep your name

by arabybizarre



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Nicole centric, Non-Linear Narrative, Wayhaught - Freeform, and what led to her Vegas wedding, delving more into her past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 11:37:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11805219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabybizarre/pseuds/arabybizarre
Summary: In reaction to the secret revealed in 2x10. Nicole may not be hiding any revenants in her closet, but she does have skeletons of her own.Unpacking Nicole's marriage, and why she chose to keep things hid.





	keep your name

**Author's Note:**

> Well, Shae was a surprise. And that marriage certainly carries a lot of implications about who Nicole is as a person, and why she might keep something like this from Waverly. This fic digs into that (without speccing how things might go in 2x11, because who knows at this point).

“What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done?”

The question is barely out of Waverly’s mouth before Nicole realizes that she should tell her. She thinks about the adrenaline of scaling a rock face, of falling from the same height. She thinks about snakebite shots and Britney Live and unashamed declarations of love in a hotel stairwell. Being honest for the first time in lying to herself. Kitschy Vegas chapels--

She wonders if she’ll ever get the timing right, because now isn’t it. Not with Waverly smiling up at her for the first time since Willa and that night at the Wainwright. _Let’s play twenty questions,_ she’d suggested, desperate for a distraction.

Every time Nicole tries to give her one, really, something else seems to come up. Kidnappings, long-lost sisters, _revenants._ Her own skeletons feel so pedestrian in comparison that she’s not sure they’ll ever fully have a place here. That _she’ll_ ever have a place here. But she’ll be damned if she doesn’t at least try.

(Unlike the last time. A morning after in Nevada with the imitation of affection already paling in the light of the dawn.)

So, instead, she rolls up her sleeve and shows Waverly the poppies tattooed on the inside of her right bicep. She tells her about her grandmother, and the one time in her life that her grief felt so massive that she needed a forever reminder inked into her skin.

The truth will come eventually, she tells herself, though her heart doesn’t walk back from its nauseatingly erratic beat.

* * *

 

Her sister has a proper wedding. She’s married by a priest in one of the small, ornately decorated chapels of their youth. The pews creak and the windows are stained with the images of saints. Hayley wears white like the good Christian virgin her parents believe her to be. Nicole, on the other hand, is forced to wear a monstrosity of a peach-colored dress that she’s honestly considering burning by the night’s end, as well as a pair of cowboy boots that her sister had absolutely insisted on ( _for the pictures)._

She wanted to protest, but she knows how much this all means to Hayley. And she _is_ maid of honor. Nicole couldn’t deny her even if she wanted to.

It’s selfish, but the whole time, she can’t help but notice the way her parents refuse to look at her. No doubt, they’d argued with Hayley over Nicole’s place in the wedding in the first place. But at the end of the day, they couldn’t deny their firstborn anything either. She was the favorite, after all.

She drinks a little too much at the reception. One of the other bridesmaids had promised to drive her home afterwards, so it’s no worry. It’s just not really her style--getting blind drunk at family functions, tripping over herself on the way to the bathroom. She’s always maintained more of a sense of decorum than that. But when she stumbles through the door and her mother is there washing her hands, unable to even pass her a glance--she just can’t help herself.

They’re throwing rice at the beaming newlyweds when it dawns on her, drunk or not: she really did make a mistake.

Nicole doesn’t need the church. She doesn’t need a white gown or a big party. But she does need someone who can love her the way she’s always dreamt of being loved: nice and gentle, without any of the perfunctory bits. Nice and earnest.

She sends a text to Shae later that night.

            _This isn’t going to work, is it?_

The text is read. Three dots bubble up at the bottom of the screen, then stop. After a long moment, she responds.

            _Probably not._

Then, just as quickly.

            _Do you regret it?_

Nicole hesitates. She knows it was a mistake. She used to think two years was too soon to get married to somebody. But she and Shae had barely known each for two months when they ran off to Nevada together.

Nevertheless, she’s surprised by the clarity of her answer.

            _No, I don’t._

* * *

 

Nicole tells herself she is very drunk that night after the show, but the truth is, she isn’t. She’s had a few shots of tequila but not nearly as many as Shae. She abstains on purpose, because she wants to remember what it’s like to be touched by a beautiful woman in public with a clear head.

Every time Shae places a hand on the small of her back or her thigh, or weaves her fingers through her hair during a dizzying kiss, she can’t help but think of everything she’s left behind to have this.

It’s confusing. Equal parts anger and resentment at her parents for casting her aside the moment she came out, for telling her that she was _wrong_ and that she’d _failed_ them and tarnished the Haught name. But there is also the thrill of doing something she’s always been told was wrong. The sadness of realizing the fault in that logic to begin with. And the residual fear of being seen.

All these things at once. Feelings she’s tried so desperately in the past year to escape. Moving in with Hayley had provided temporary shelter. Acceptance into the academy had helped more, given her an out and something to be proud of at the same time. But nothing has been more of a salve than Shae.

Being admired by Shae. Appreciated by Shae. Touched by Shae.

Her head is swimming. They’re pawing at each other in the hotel stairwell, bathed in an unflattering and painful fluorescent light. She reaches for the hem of Shae’s skirt and the other woman stills her wrist, smiling gently.

“I have an idea.”

She knows Nicole has something to prove. She’s a bit lonely herself, a bit out of place. But she can count on the fact that Nicole Haught isn’t a quitter. That she isn’t a coward and she doesn’t like to be told how to live her life.

“We can prove everybody wrong,” she’s whispering to her in the taxicab. “Nobody gets to decide how we feel.”

It’s a silly thing. A simple thing. But nobody had ever really told Nicole she was allowed to think for herself before, let alone feel.

That notion alone is enough to spark a flame.

* * *

 

Hadn’t she told Wynonna she couldn’t lie to Waverly? She has to wonder how things can fall apart so quickly.

It happens like this:

There’s panic first. Waverly tries hard to hide it, but she lets her guard down late at night. In the dark, in Nicole’s bed.

“Ward never loved me,” she says with absolute certainty. “I don’t know that he hated me, but he definitely didn’t love me.” Nicole holds her tighter. There’s so much she wants to say. Sometimes, she waits and waits for her turn, but she feels like it doesn’t arrive. Waverly’s confessions often come with a heaviness that leaves little room for her own secrets. She holds them inside, instead. Allows them to smother her.

“What Willa felt--that was hatred.” Her voice is so small and shattered, Nicole feels herself splintering beneath the implication. _I won’t add to this,_ she tells herself. _Not now. How could I?_

After the panic, there is false bravado. There is the best of intentions.

The DNA results arrive at the police station and the envelope is an oppressive weight in her hand. She thinks of the way Waverly’s heart is already so broken, before she’s even gotten her answer. She thinks of how Wynonna might react. How there’s already _so much_ wrong happening.

_I need to know how to make this better,_ she thinks. Because Nicole has let a lot of people down in her life. She’s still letting them down, whether they know it or not. And she wants to do just _one thing_ right. But the only way it seems she can do that is by opening that envelope.

It feels immediately wrong. Like that morning after, with a ring on her finger. Except the enormity of this particular mistake makes her feel like that same finger might remain bare for a long time to come.

She debates resealing the envelope, but remembers that Waverly is entirely too smart for that. Instead, she tucks it into her purse, puts on a brave face, and resolves to deliver the news when the moment is right.

Of course, something comes up. (Something always comes up.)

Nicole is suddenly helping to plan a baby shower, hanging the piñata and sampling cocktails, and it’s just too normal. Too normal for the envelope that’s hidden in her purse. Too normal for the way her heart clenches and sings _liar liar liar._

She hates herself when Waverly walks out on her. Hates the way she seems so made for mistakes.

Later on, alone in her bed, she thinks her parents were wrong about many, many things. Their ideology and their prejudice, undoubtedly. The way they clung to their own marriage, duty-bound, though the love had left them so long ago. They were wrong about all of it.

But maybe, she worries, they weren’t entirely wrong about her.

* * *

 

“I have to ask you something.”

“Well, that sounds important.”

Nicole sits in her cruiser, picking nervously at a loose thread sticking out of the seam of her pants. The heater blasts, reddening her cheeks and nose.

“It is.”

“Then, of course. What’s up?” Shae has that tone--friendly and warm, yet still mildly professional. Clinical. She always sounds that way on the phone, as if every call were something of a business call.

“Is it wrong of me, to start seeing someone else?”

“What?” Nicole can picture the look on her face perfectly, brow all pinched in confusion. “Why would it be wrong?”

“Because we’re still married.”

“Separated, Nicole,” Shae sighs.

“Yes, well. You know what I mean.”

“I don’t actually. It’s all on paper now. We agreed to that. It’s normal to see other people.”

“Right.”

There’s more that she wants to say. Shae, distant as she may be from her now, can still sense it. She never did have trouble reading her, even in the very beginning. (Or the very end--they were one in the same.)

“Why are you really asking?” Her voice is softer this time, less the doctor, and more the ex. More the friend.

“I don’t know,” Nicole huffs, frustrated with herself as always. “I guess I just felt like I needed your permission.”

There’s a long pause. Nicole worries that she’s said the wrong thing--not for the first time. She’s been saying a lot of the wrong things lately. Between her family and her soon-to-be-ex-wife and the girl she’s patently _not_ -dating (her reason for calling today).

Shae is a little bit quieter then. There’s a bite to her words, but it isn’t aimed at Nicole. “You don’t need my permission, Nicole. You don’t need _anyone’s_ permission. I wish you would understand that.”

The embarrassment hits her first. Shae isn’t wrong, she knows. But old habits die hard.

There’s a long moment of silence before the other woman asks, more curiosity than anything else, “So, who is she?”

There are so many heady adjectives that cross her mind, though none of them seem to fit. She catches herself smiling softly in the rearview as she simply answers, “She’s something else.”

* * *

 

The haze of the venom coursing through her veins is unrelenting. It makes her feel like her entire body is being turned inside out, all at once. There’s so much pressure in her head, behind her eyes. Nicole didn’t even realize pain like this could exist.

Yet in spite of the heaviness of it all, some things appear so clearly now.

“I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you.”

Thoughts like _too much_ and _too soon_ no longer seem to matter. Because this is the end, isn’t it? And if it is, she needs Waverly to know--there would never be anybody else for her.

Waverly caresses her cheek, fingertips cold and eyes fraught with fear. Her touch is sheer ruination. Nicole has never felt anything so liberating in her entire life.

There are worse ways to go, she’s sure. It’s what she tells herself as she slips under, Waverly’s promises resting squarely in the cradle of her chest.

She’s there waiting for her, when Nicole comes to later. Disoriented, at first, and with a confusing _lack_ of pain. That must be what comes after, Nicole realizes: relief. Except that that seems far too nice compared to what her parents had told her she should expect.

“Waverly?” Her voice is groggy, throat a little achy still from the Widow’s iron grip, but she feels blessedly _okay_ otherwise.

Waverly cries happy tears, and despite what she keeps referring to as a miracle, Nicole still feels too fragile not to cry herself. Death wasn’t as scary as she’d thought it would be (a realization that’s a bit alarming in and of itself), but it had been lonely in its own way. She’s not sure she’s ever been so grateful to have Waverly holding her hand.

With all the shock and happiness and relief, she’s not sure what to make of it when Wynonna bursts into the room brandishing her _cure_ , somehow an hour too late, and the mood in the room grows so immediately cold that Waverly runs from it, from them both.

The older Earp stands there for a few moments, jaw clenched tightly, before tossing the vial at Nicole. Caught off guard, she just barely manages to catch it, bandages all on display.

“ _You_ know I wouldn’t have let you die, right?” Wynonna’s voice is gruff. But there’s a despairing sense of insecurity hidden beneath the edge of it that leaves Nicole at something of a loss.

“You did save me, Wynonna.” It’s a dumb thing to say, she supposes. But Wynonna came through for her. She _would’ve_ come through for her, had the venom finished the job.

“I tried,” Wynonna replies, voice tight. “But I guess I was a little too late. Again.”

She’s out of the room so quickly then that Nicole couldn’t stop her even if she tried. Instead, she settles back into the bed, confused and a little anxious over this unexpected change in mood.

There’s really no such thing as miracles, Nicole knows. Especially not in Purgatory, where even the plainly unexplainable seems to come with thorough cause and effect.

She’s struggling to come up with an appropriate text to Waverly-- _What happened?_ seems far too vague and _Are you okay?_ far too obvious--when there comes a knock on the doorframe.

Shae was never one to look sheepish or uncertain, but she does appear somewhat awkward standing there now.

“Are you waiting for an invitation?” Nicole teases, though her heart isn’t in it.

Shae takes a few long strides into the room, keeping a respectable distance between herself and the bed. “I heard you were awake. And cured.”

Nicole meets her quizzical gaze. “Miraculously.”

Shae frowns. “As a doctor, I find that a little hard to believe.”

The anti-venom is still clutched in Nicole’s fist. She holds on a little tighter and lies. “I’m kidding. There was an anti-venom.”

She doesn’t look any further convinced, but wisely chooses not to comment. Shae has always been good at that--better than Nicole. Stepping forward, she asks, “What kind of trouble are you getting yourself into up here?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Nicole.” Shae is too smart for her own good. Like someone else she knows. She _does_ have a type, after all. “I know you’re something of a magnet for this kind of thing, but couldn’t you at least try to keep yourself safe? We may not be together anymore, but I don’t relish these calls from the hospital.”

“You really didn’t need to come,” Nicole tells her, voice quieter. She’s having troubling meeting Shae’s eyes, all of a sudden.

Shae chuckles in disbelief. “I did.” She takes one step closer, placing her hand on Nicole’s shoulder. “But you’re okay now?”

Nicole swallows. “I think I am.”

Shae’s stubborn, in her own way. She hates not knowing. And it’s hard for her now, Nicole is sure, sensing that there’s more to the story but instead ceding to her own ignorance. “I should get going then. I can’t be away from work any longer than necessary.”

“I understand,” Nicole nods.

“Just… text me when you’re home, so I know there were no complications.”

“I will, don’t worry.”

Shae squeezes her shoulder one last time and heads for the door. She stops before leaving, and turns. “You were right, by the way.”

“Hmm?” Nicole asks, her mind already elsewhere.

“Waverly,” she smiles approvingly. “She is something else.”

* * *

 

Nicole bites back a curse as she rifles through her top dresser drawer, searching for a matching pair of socks. As of late, Calamity has taken to stealing them out of her laundry basket and hiding them around the house, leaving her drawer a mismatched hodgepodge of orphaned socks.

It’s too early in the morning for this kind of hassle. She was feeling particularly bitter about leaving her bed to begin with, given who had been sleeping beside her. But she’d known it would be like this last night when they _weren’t_ sleeping. She only has herself to blame.

Finally, Nicole spies what she hopes to be a matching pair. They are, to her relief, but as her hand closes around them, she feels a small bulge in the toe that gives her pause. Confused, she shakes it out into the palm of her hand, the memory coming back to her.

She stopped wearing her wedding band the day she accepted the job in Purgatory. Yet there it had sat, on the bedside table of the old apartment for weeks. Nicole hadn’t a clue what she should do with it.

She considered pawning it but eventually settled against it. It was a bittersweet token and a reminder of her own foolishness, but not necessarily something she wanted to forget. During the move, she’d hidden it in a sandwich baggie and stuffed it deep into one of the boxes marked _bedroom_.

The day she arrived at the new house, she was fairly overwhelmed. Not just by the newness of this small town or the anxiety of starting in a new position fresh out of the academy, but by the scope of making this place a home, all by herself.

Nicole drank too much wine, as she was sometimes wont to do. By the time she got to the bedroom, she could only partially remember how things had been organized. And the ring? She couldn’t remember finding that (or losing it) at all.

She’s a little shocked to see it now--an intruder in this comfortable bubble that she and Waverly have come to inhabit. For several moments, she can only stare at it, then back over her shoulder at the girl sleeping soundly in her bed. Nicole hadn’t necessarily been trying to keep these two worlds, these two parts of herself separate. But she’s surprised to find now that this overlap, minor as it may be, is somewhat comforting.

Calamity Jane meows just outside the doorway, impatiently waiting to be fed.

“Calm down,” Nicole mutters. “I’ll just be a minute.”

Satisfied, Calamity pads away as Nicole places the ring back into one of her misfit socks. She finishes dressing with an odd sense of calm before sitting at the edge of the bed. Very gently, she leans down to press a kiss to the crown of Waverly’s head.

Immediately, the other woman stirs, as if from some sort of sixth sense. She glances up at Nicole, all sleep mussed and red in the cheeks, eyes barely open.

“Work?”

“Mhm. You should go back to sleep though. I just wanted to say bye.”

“Okay.” Waverly already seems to be drifting off again as she pulls Nicole down for a short kiss. “Bye.”

“Bye, baby.” Nicole hesitates for a moment, hand in Waverly’s hair. She thinks about the ring again, about the mistakes that she’s made. She’ll learn to right them, in time. But for now, this will more than do.

“I hope you make yourself at home,” she says quietly, getting up to leave. She really means it.


End file.
